How to build teamwork among your staff or employees? Being a manager, supervisor or the leader in any organization has never been an easy task. They are given with duties and responsibilities which involve managing and leading people to achieve a common goal. Speaking of a common goal, teamwork is one essential thing that any group or organization should develop to reach that goal. Here are important tips that will help you bring your people together to effectively and efficiently accomplish your organizational objectives.
1. Start building teamwork from yourself. As a leader, you should be the one to lead in showing to your people that you’re doing your part as a member of a team. Yes you are the leader or the manager, but that doesn’t mean you’re not a member. You are actually considered as the member that has the biggest and greatest responsibility and tasks to be accomplished. So do your best as the head or the captain of your team. To do that, you should build teamwork within yourself. This means that you need to unite and harmonize your mind, heart and spirit to work as one – to come up with concrete decisions. A person whose mental and emotional aspects are not harmonizing, and who can’t even lead himself, is not going to be a strong leader or a manager.
2. Set clear goals and objectives. This is to make sure that your people will be heading to a common road. If your goals are not achievable, or even if achievable but are not desirable, your subordinates or followers might not become enthusiastic to reach those goals. Of course there might be some among your people who will be forced to follow you. But teamwork means everyone is following and coordinating, and not only some. Objectives should also be aligned with clear and specific steps or procedures. Good objectives are desirable, but when there are no certain steps to accomplish them, those objectives become nothing but dreams to be wished for. Thus, make sure to provide a direction and a destination where all your people can fit in.
3. Know your employees and give the right tasks for them. A very important thing to do in building teamwork among your employees is to put them in the right positions. Place your workers or staff where they fit in or where they are best of. This requires your attention and dedication to know your people. That is why it’s also vital to always talk and communicate with them to learn their different traits and personalities. Every people have their own strengths and weaknesses. You’ve got to understand them and make out the best of it. Just like a basketball team, you need to assign who is the best player for a forward, for a center, and for a point guard.
4. Get your people closer to each other. This also includes you. You’ve also got to be closer to them. Workers and their managers maybe spending more time together in the workplace than they are in their homes. However, this doesn’t mean they are already close to each other. There can always be gaps and cold wars among people though they see each other everyday. To avoid those gaps, you need to do things that will make everyone see each other beyond what their eyes can see. In other words, you need to conduct activities that will make the people inside your organization see the emotional or spiritual sides among them. These activities can be in the form of retreat or out-of-town teambuilding activities. Getting your employees in a longer trip, for example out-of-town travelling, makes them closer and learn each other than only bringing them to nearby trips. You can also go with your employees in their regular activities outside office, such as taking lunch and having dinner. But be careful to be natural. Do this not for your personal interest, but for their interest and protection.
5. Choose the right people. Finally, you should understand that there are people that no matter what you do will not coordinate to a team work. As quality management suggests, you need to be wise in staffing and hiring employees to be part of your team. Therefore, start building teamwork inside your organization by hiring the people who have the value of teamwork.
Victorino Q. Abrugar is a marketing strategist and business consultant from Tacloban City, Philippines. Vic has been in the online marketing industry for more than 7 years, practicing problogging, web development, content marketing, SEO, social media marketing, and consulting.
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